


So Quite New a Thing

by jat_sapphire



Category: The Professionals
Genre: Episode s04e07 Blackout, Episode s05e05 Discovered in a Graveyard, Episode: s01e03 Where the Jungle Ends, Episode: s01e12 Stake Out, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-18
Updated: 2019-04-18
Packaged: 2020-01-15 02:25:44
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,005
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18489367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jat_sapphire/pseuds/jat_sapphire
Summary: Reflections on a relationship through e. e. cummings's poem"i like my body when it is with your".Chapters are not in chronological order.  Well, really they're more like related snippets than chapters.





	1. i like my body when it is with your/body

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Doyle's POV post "Discovered in a Graveyard." This chapter is rated T.

Ray stood in front of a full-length mirror at Bodie's, because of course Bodie had a full-length mirror, and looked at himself. He'd just sluiced off the mud and dust of that day's op, and Bodie was taking his turn in the shower now, humming a tune Ray couldn't make out. Jeans and a shirt from some other messy op, washed and laid out on that furry bedspread of Bodie's, awaited. All Ray had to do was turn away from the mirror and take the towel off, and he could slip into them and look normal again.

He kept gazing at himself. Eventually, this chest would feel, once more, as if it belonged to him. This image would be _him_ again, not some funhouse-mirror distortion, some nightmare deformation, as if a photo of himself at some happier time had been crunched up in a ball and then smoothed out.

Not yet. The sight surprised him every time. All over again.

When Bodie came out of the bathroom, he'd expect to see Doyle dressed, not staring at his reflection and feeling the pale ridges and knots that tangled through his chest hair. But Ray had a horrible fascination with the scars, especially when he wanted so much to be not just back to work but back to his real life, when he and Bodie would finish a day, clean up, and go down the pub, when each or both would pull a bird and show her a good time.

How could a bird, a stranger, have a good time with this mangled body? He could call an old girlfriend ... if he wanted to explain and risk winning only her pity. Claire, for instance--she'd been to see him in hospital, already knew most of it. And as a nurse, she'd seen pretty much everything. 

But not shagged it.

He couldn't imagine Claire looking at him, touching him, with desire. Who would?

A movement of the air, warmth at his back, and Bodie's hands were on Ray's waist, arms closing around him. Bodie's chin was on his shoulder.

"Almost as tall, almost as dark," Bodie said, his voice soft and deep. Then, after a pause, he went on, "Handsome."

Ray sighed and relaxed against his mate's body. Bodie's hands roamed and circled on Ray's abs, below the large scars. There was a little colour in Bodie's cheeks, Ray noticed, and that wasn't desire either despite the movement of his hands. Maybe embarassment. Bodie hated emotional scenes.

Turning his face into Ray's hair, rubbing his cheek in it, kissing Ray's ear, Bodie murmured, "I, I'm, I need you to know," while his palms slid up and his fingers ran along the scars, as if mapping them. "I'm grateful."

Ray closed his eyes, too moved to speak, concentrating on what he could feel through the scars. He thought he would have known these were Bodie's hands by their broad warmth and the way his calluses caught and rasped slightly, like cats' tongues. By the sense of their bond in the touch.

Still he asked, "For what?"

Bodie kissed along the side of Ray's throat, and Ray stretched it out, taking a deep , slow breath. Bodie's mouth stopped where neck met shoulder but did not break contact.

"Eh, mate, for what?" They'd never said even this much, but Ray thought he knew what was almost spoken now.

Bodie turned Ray, held his sides just above the towel and bent to kiss the scars, bullet holes, incisions, cuts where the milk bottle pieces had stabbed into him, and Ray felt, each time, as if it had been on his naked heart. Or on his cock, which jerked and filled with each kiss.

"Bodie!" Who else could he need?

Then they were naked on the fur, and Bodie had no pity on him.


	2. muscles better and nerves more

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bodie learns to feel again. This chapter is rated T.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I thought this would use more of the episode and include sex. Sorry, if you expected that too. I'm afraid it won't make much sense if you have not seen "Where the Jungle Ends."

"I loved her, really loved her," Bodie said, looking through the bars of the HQ elevator's folding gate as if he could see her, but he had forgotten the living face he had found so beautiful. His only memory now was of how she had looked on the ground, twisted from her fall into the tree trunk, half her head shot away.

And he couldn't even kill Krivas with the others always around, couldn't even leave before they ended up dumped into prison cells in the Congo. Gradually, as he sat on a filthy stone floor against an only slightly less filthy wall, the grief and hatred and rage had fallen in, and Bodie felt he had nothing inside but a sinkhole. Dark, damp as the prison cell, deeper than any hole he'd actually seen. Down to the center of the earth, if that was icy cold instead of molten rock.

The Paras gave him good, taxing work, SAS more so, and when Cowley and Nairn spoke to him about CI5, it seemed an even better, colder place to feel nothing in.

Then he met Doyle.

The noise of yelling and scuffling was the first impression Doyle made, before Bodie got anywhere near enough to see the man. Then he stood dumbfounded, staring at the emotional dynamo before him. Doyle might have been a stray cat with a tin rattling after him, a string tied to his brush of a tail. His broken cheek, his toothy snarl, even his hair was expressive. Scruffy, but expressive. He was like a bonfire.

Bodie thought, _He'd warm anyone._ The thought made him grin.

Doyle scowled. "What the fuck you laughin' at, y'great clown?"

And Bodie did laugh then, harder as Doyle squared off and lifted his fists. "Cool it, calm down," not that saying that ever did quiet anyone, especially not this spitting tomcat of a man.

The agent Doyle had been pounding uncurled, holding his stomach. "Damn it, Doyle, what'd you have to go and do that for?"

"Deserved it, didn't you, Biggs? Won't think again that I'm easy to put down."

"No," Biggs said, so ruefully that Bodie wasn't the only one laughing.

The other trainees left Doyle to himself after that, but Bodie couldn't help but draw near. He wound Doyle up just to watch him go, like a skyrocket, sparks everywhere. But more and more, Doyle's spurts of temper cut off as Bodie watched them, as he caught Doyle's arm or patted his shoulder, or even just smiled.

Cowley observed them. And made them partners. "Chalk and cheese," he said. Bodie knew which of them was pale and barren as Dover's cliffs, which was savoury and sharp and alive. Unable to stay an ordinary distance, Bodie poked and elbowed and patted Doyle, messed with his hair, even groped his bum as they went up the stairs, half for the physical warmth and half for the temper that was always like the bonfire he had imagined that first time. Radiating, so he felt the temperature drop when he turned away. Sometimes he actually shivered when Ray left the room or the op separated them.

He whinged about training as they all did, but if he'd been forced to tell the truth, he would have had to admit that sparring with Doyle, running with him, climbing and swinging and attacking hanging dummies, was a sharp pleasure even when they ended the day bruised and exhausted. And on the job, he was stretched to new physical heights. Even in the SAS, he'd never run after an automobile, never leaped across a bonnet to drive off in a rush, and chasing some yob with Doyle was like flying. Away from the frozen past.

He ran as fast as he could push his body through the air, over the rough ground, still a step behind Doyle, who as usual was burning ahead like a rocket. The spy fleeing in front of them had no chance, and seemed at last to realise it, stumbling as he fought to turn.

Doyle ran onto the villain's fist and fell to the side, clutching the spot below the ribcage where he'd taken the blow. This time the fireball was inside Bodie and his arm exploded outward. He felt the spy's cartilage crunch and the nose give with fierce delight. The man cried out and collapsed, both hands on his face. Not one of the East Germans' tougher agents, clearly. Bodie looked to the side where Doyle was already on his feet, though gasping a bit, and met his sardonic eyes. Bodie wanted to laugh and throw his arm across Doyle's shoulders. He knew he'd be pushed off, though. Instead they cuffed the man and hauled him back to the Capri to go back to HQ for Cowley to interrogate.

The spy's name was Keller. The coincidence didn't amuse Bodie. Beside the long nose and broad shoulders, the spy and the SAS soldier Bodie had known so well weren't at all alike, but then Keller wasn't that unusual a name ... in Germany, at any rate. Though it was the Turks who wanted spy-Keller back.

Picking him up from the interrogation cell cheered Bodie up to a degree that made him think. The bandage on Keller's nose was a pleasure to see. And Doyle's handkerchief in Keller's hand made Bodie grin, while the feel of his partner at his side made him uncomplicatedly happy in a way he couldn't remember being ... ever, really. He thought he must have had the same happy times as other children had, but he didn't recall the feeling itself.

"Down the pub after this?" he asked as they turned into the Heathrow car park.

"Why not?" Doyle answered, grinning easily. Keller frowned under his long stripe of mustache and looked out the window.

When Doyle pulled him out of the car by the arm, Keller tried to pull away, snarling something that sounded like "pushed" or "bushed." Bodie didn't know Turkish, but he knew the sound of a fighting word, and he rushed round the car to glare back, lowering his head and squaring his shoulders.

"You want the cuffs, then?" Doyle held them out.

Keller twitched again, waking Bodie's spirit of devilry. "Oh, no, petal, you do it," he simpered. Doyle rolled his eyes, but cuffed Keller and Bodie together. They made their way into the airport. 

***

"Bodie, you're no better than he is!"

Sparing a glance, Bodie saw Doyle literally glaring down from the (moral) high ground, his fear for his partner expressed as anger, as so many of Doyle's emotions were. Bodie knew it, and knew what he'd heard was a lie, or rather that Doyle did not believe what he had just said. He took a breath to gloat once more at the fear in Krivas's eyes and said, putting on the cold menace that had once been so natural, "I don't think that's true, do you?"

Krivas obviously believed it.

"Only one way to find out." He tossed his gun to Doyle. "I'm not breaking the law, just bending it." 

He took the few steps between them evenly, not hurrying but feeling the lust for violence build in his muscles. This was right. Even Krivas pounding him, hard as those skilled hands could strike, was right, was the only way out of the jungle: through it. A knee to Krivas's chin, a blow to his stomach, lifting him up and throwing him, tearing off that ski hood of his, feeling his own blood burst from his nose and his jaw knocked sideways hard enough to make his teeth feel loose. He gloried in putting the whole strength of his shoulder muscles into each blow, putting his boot in Krivas's ribs, wrenching his arm behind him and hearing a roar of pain. What difference did it make that Bodie roared too at his own pains, that his clothes ripped and his thighs took Krivas's boots trying to snap them, that his fingers were wrenched and one of his ears twisted until it began to tear? At last, at last, he had a knock-out blow to give and delivered it, and the monster of Bodie's nightmares, the ghost of the memories he kept locked and unexamined, fell like a cut tree and lay like the dead.

Bodie stood staring as his heart thundered and his breathing gusted and caught, as his vision cleared and he could see Krivas also gasp air in, blow it out. Doyle had left the sandy outcrop he'd stood on. He'd trusted Bodie. In the thrill of that feeling, Bodie tilted his head back and looked at the white shards of cloud against warm blue. Time to find Doyle and Cowley before his muscles seized up and he wouldn't be able to move.

After Cowley and Doyle had had their laugh, after they'd retrieved Krivas and secured him in the back seat of the car, Doyle drove them back while Cowley barked into the phone. Krivas went to an interrogation cell at HQ, Cowley went to Harley street to argue with his doctor, and Bodie went to A&E, where he had stitches on his hairline and his ear and pokes and prods most other places. Doyle brought him a clean jogging suit and trainers and then took him home--to Bodie's flat, where he stood in the lounge looking about as if he didn't know where the chairs were.

"Ray," Bodie said, feeling like a stranger here himself. It seemed days since he'd been in the flat.

"Go wash off the pong," Ray said without looking around.

Bodie went.

When he was clean and had a towel for decency's sake, he looked again, and Ray seemed not to have moved. "Your turn," Bodie said, and Doyle seemed startled, whirling around and then just staring.

He took a step, then another, as if each time he thought the matter through and decided. His gaze darted up and down, but by the time he was in arm's reach, he was looking steadily into Bodie's eyes and his face was still, holding an expression that Bodie could not read. It was intense, forceful, under straight brows, and Doyle reached out but did not quite touch Bodie's face on the less-injured side.

Bodie seemed to sense Doyle's body heat, each fingertip a distinct warmth on his cheek, though he could see they were not close enough to meet his skin. He grasped and held those fingers he had seen so often move so deftly, and felt them not completely steady.

"Bodie," Doyle said barely above a whisper, "Are--how are you?"

"Banged up," Bodie admitted, trying to grin but flinching as the movement stretched his torn lip. "But ... I feel ..." and he paused because he was actually feeling. His muscles ached; his nose, hairline and ear stung; he remembered Allison alive, the way she danced and the way she smiled at him. He caught his breath and Doyle pulled him into a hug.

"I've got you," he said, and his voice was rough. So was his breath. They stood together, emotion flaring up hot and strong, holding tight until their lungs moved in time and they could let go, eyes dry.


	3. i like its hows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Doyle's POV after "Blackout." This chapter is rated M.

In the pub, Gerda squeezed in next to Bodie on the bench as if she were one of his birds, but instead of commiserating with him about the kid's watch, said, "Superman or not, you're going to need a lot of help for now."

Then she went back to the Parkers'.

Doyle tried to sympathise. At least, he wanted Bodie to think he was sympathising, but he was afraid that he wasn't succeeding to any marked degree.

"Happens to us all, so don't gloat, old son." Bodie sounded as if he didn't much mind, but there was strain in his voice that was probably pain.

"Should rest anyhow," Doyle said.

Bodie drew himself up in the passenger seat, which must have hurt like bloody hell by the grimace he made, and said in his posh voice, "Do you mean to imply--to _insinuate_ \-- that I am not up to pulling a bird? Tonight or any other night?"

"Never," Doyle answered fervently.

A minute or two went by. "I am a bit tired," Bodie admitted.

Doyle bit the inside of his lip and did not grin. "No shame in an early night, Superman."

"Very funny."

Doyle thought the gift watch had been very funny, in fact, but there was no telling Bodie. "Next time you want to open a steel door, you berk ..." he said before he could stop himself, and then he gulped in air and closed his mouth, like a ... like a _bloody great steel door for the love of Christ, what did that madman_ ....

"There wasn't enough time," Bodie said, his voice low.

What could anyone say to that? It was true. And where had Doyle been? Not near enough.

He shook his head. And since the Capri was at a red light and because it was all crashing over him just at this instant, he pinched the bridge of his nose and squinched his eyes closed, just for a moment, but then Bodie was elbowing him with the good arm and saying, "Ray," and he blinked hard and drove.

At least Bodie had a ground-floor flat for once. He got himself inside it, slumped on the sofa, and watched through the pass-through as Doyle got the tea. Doyle felt the gaze like something prickly touching him, a thistle maybe, on his own shoulder, on the side of his face, on the back of his head. He made Bodie's cuppa and his own, brought them out, and watched while his partner sipped cautiously. Doyle had had his own shoulder injuries and remembered how even with the sling, every movement hurt--and sitting still, too. "Have a kip?" he asked as Bodie got painfully to his feet.

But he shook his head, jerkily as if even that hurt, and said, "Just a slash." So Doyle shut up and stayed still, but he couldn't help watching his partner's uneven walk, even though he wondered what he himself was doing there. He knew that unfastening one zip and pulling out his cock wasn't beyond Bodie; however, actually undressing and getting pillows where they were needed ... well, it was beyond anyone in a sling like that. Nothing romantic or sexy about it either. No wonder Gerda had cut out.

Bodie looked so tired when he came back, shoulders sagging and head too as he looked at the sofa, that Doyle said, "Sure you don't want to just call it a day?"

"It's that, all right," Bodie agreed, and then met Doyle's eyes apologetically. "Got a date? You can--"

"No, no," Doyle interrupted. "No. You just seem, I mean I know ..."

"Okay," Bodie said, as if the end of that confused sentence was too much to bother with. He turned toward his bedroom, and Doyle collected a few cushions and followed.

Undressing Bodie to undershirt and boxers was difficult enough while trying not to hurt his shoulder, and it was no easier to set him up in bed, half-sitting up, pillows shored up around and behind him so his arm was solidly supported. When he was hurt, he seemed so much bigger than usual. Doyle felt ineffectual, and when he'd done his best, kept looking down at Bodie trying to pretend he was comfortable. "Ta," he said wanly. 

Doyle snorted; he couldn't help it. Thanks for nothing.

Bodie's lashes lifted. He looked embarassed. "I mean, I usually sleep on my stomach, but I know I can't with the shoulder."

Doyle shuddered just thinking about it. "It's just--it'll be a bad time, but you heal well, shouldn't take too long." He couldn't help but fix his gaze on the place where they'd worked on rolling up the sleeve, getting the sling strap just right and the cushions where they'd do most good. The skin was mottled purple and black. But the arm below, the forearm, the hand, the strong neck and taut jaw ... "Wish I could make you feel good," he blurted.

"I don't think I would," Bodie said after a pause.

Doyle gave himself a moment to imagine it, getting between Bodie's long legs, reaching into the boxers or maybe sliding them off, stroking until Bodie was hard, hearing and feeling his pleasure as it grew--oh, he wanted that.

But he thought of how Bodie writhed and reached, how his whole body showed and shared in his climb to orgasm, and he knew how much he'd hurt himself. "No, s'pose not. Have to wait for that, too." Doyle took a few steps and petted Bodie's soft short hair, his forehead as well. "This okay?"

Bodie nodded, his eyes closed and a small smile on his mouth. Doyle went on stroking, looking, thinking of how Bodie had looked earlier in the day, smirking about Gerda in her underwear, showing off his new watch, smiling when he thought he had a replacement. The way he ate the ice cream. The way he swung one arm forward, bowling. Doyle's hand slipped down to Bodie's neck, stroked the long throat. Bodie hummed contentedly.

There was his collarbone, the sweet dip in it, the hill of the uninjured shoulder under the undershirt, the sleeve ending on his biceps where Doyle could put his fingers in and stroke more. Bodie's head moved left, then right. His right hand caught Doyle's and brought it to Bodie's lips.

Doyle's voice quivered as Bodie kissed and nipped his fingertips. "I'm," he swallowed and went on, "upset you smashed your shoulder. But I don't think anyone else could have taken that door down."

Releasing Doyle's hand, Bodie said, "Murphy."

"If you told him to." Doyle waved off that idea, then went back to touching Bodie, near the neck of the undershirt, stroking down his chest. "Or if you'd done it together--"

"Too many cooks," Bodie said, voice even lower as his breath grew deeper.

"If you say so." Doyle reached Bodie's navel, circled it, the cotton feeling rougher than it really was.

The room fell silent. Doyle remembered this body in action and in bed. He imagined how they'd please each other when Bodie was healed.

"Ray," almost soundlessly, his name slipped from Bodie's mouth, which stayed just slightly ajar.

Doyle lifted his hand, bent and kissed Bodie so lightly that he did not wake. Then with that "Ray," still in his ears, Doyle went back out to the lounge. Bodie would need help again in the morning.

Doyle would be glad to do it.


	4. again and again and again kiss

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bodie's POV, post "Stake Out." This chapter is rated E.

Doyle was in the passenger seat of the Capri, his legs splayed and his hands tucked down. Bodie suspected that they were too unsteady for public display, and even though he didn't consider the two of them in the car to be "public," he understood why Doyle looked like a stuffed toy without the stuffing. Plenty of times he'd felt the same: played-out, exposed, after they'd put their lives on the line.

Normally, Bodie would have no trouble giving Doyle the space and time he needed to get the experience of defusing the A-bomb out of his system, at least enough to rest. But both of them were still keyed up, both still on edge. They'd been seconds away from being blown to dust, evaporated to shadows.

Keeping his voice as cool as he could, Bodie made a careful right turn and said, feeling bizarrely as if he spoke for a record, "Your hands. On the bomb. They were like rock. I couldn't take my eyes off y-, them."

"Can you ever?" It should have been a jibe, but maybe Doyle was too exhausted to make it bite.

Another look to the side. Their eyes met. Bodie tore his gaze away. The motorway might be empty here, but it was still an open road. He heard Doyle exhale with a _boof_ , and felt the jolt as his head fell against the seat back.

"Ray. It's done now." Doyle did not answer. Bodie drove. The silence was long and charged. They were nearly to Doyle's flat when Bodie had to speak again, had to know. "Do you?"

"What?" He sounded curious, but not startled. He hadn't been asleep, then.

"Do you know what I think you are?"

The words seemed almost to echo, to grow more resonant rather than dying away. Bodie pulled into a parking space in front of the block of flats and turned off the engine. For a while, neither spoke.

"Come find out," Doyle said firmly, got out of the car and went up to the front door without looking back.

Bodie followed. It couldn't be the slight exertion of those few steps over and up that made his breath come faster. He put the thought aside and watched Doyle climb the stairs with feet dragging, lead their tired way into the flat, and set the security locks. Then he dropped into an armchair and switched on the nearest lamp. Bodie stood nearby, looked down at the lowered face, the hair mussed and half on end. "Tell us, then. What do I think you are?"

The only movement in the chair was Doyle lifting his head, the pale round of his face still outside the lamp's dome of light. His eyes were dark smudges, his broken cheek more visible than usual. "Backup," he said, voice gravelly.

The lamplight looked warm as firelight, but steadier. Doyle's limbs, stretching into shadow, seemed to fade into chill. But that wasn't true: his life, his strength, was always full of heat. "No. I mean, yes, always, but tonight, Ray--" At this angle, he couldn't see Ray's expression, so he stepped between the splayed legs and then knelt. Put his hands on Ray's knees. "I think you're the hero. I think you're very damn good. I think your hands are steady and you didn't even sweat."

"Oh, I was sweating, sunshine."

"I think you keep me alive." Bodie heard his own voice, fervent and low, like the burning in Ray's eyes. "I think you want me, do you? I know I want you." Now Bodie's hands were shaking, he wanted so much to slide them up Ray's thighs and unzip his jeans. Or even just stroke through the denim, feel Ray's cock heat up and grow.

Ray smiled, the wide toothy kind, stood up and pulled Bodie to his feet. Kissed him, sweet and hard and full of promises. "Come on." It was almost a growl as they stumbled toward the bedroom.

Bodie kept thinking of the bomb. As Ray undressed, as Bodie took his own clothes off, as he saw Ray's cock rise and fill, as Ray's hands moved with the same confidence and strength as they had all along. "I wanted to see you pound that black madman," was all he could find to say.

"Did."

"I know, mate, but I was with the fat one, took up my attention. You know I like to watch?"

"Seen you in training, haven't I? Watching. Kink, is it?"

"If you say so. Stop talking, Ray." Bodie kissed that wide, lovely mouth, both the brooding eyes, the pulse in his throat on both sides, twice, more. The broad shoulders, the notch in Ray's collarbone, the hair high on his pectorals that seemed made for lips to play in. For licking and biting. His ribs, the beautiful flutter of his abdomen when Bodie nibbled there and palmed the hardness below. "I love kissing this and that of you," Bodie mumbled into Ray's skin, not expecting him to hear it at all, but the vibration must have tickled because Ray laughed.

"This and that?"

Bodie just looked. Ray stared back, eyes luminous and loving.

"Everything."

Ray moved sinuously, his hips sliding to present his cock to Bodie's mouth, so it would have been impolite not to take it in and suck it. Bodie's manners had nearly always been good.

He smirked a little around Ray and thought that if the reward for good manners had always been like this .... then he put thought aside and focused on the tender head; the foreskin ravelling back; the little jerks of Ray's hips and their cool skin; the warmer, tenser muscles inside his thighs; his bum flexing, relaxing, up and down and around, dancing; his bollocks drawing up and hardening and the _taste_ of him ... Ray was moaning and so was Bodie.

Bodie had known sex with Ray would be this intense. Ray's energy and passion had been the first thing Bodie had noticed about him, before they even knew each other's names. Ray was a dynamo, powering other people, in every situation. What amazed Bodie was himself. Gusts of feeling so strong that he could not name them overtook him in waves, stealing breath from his lungs until he gasped, wringing his heart until it felt torn open, beating into the air, into Ray. As Ray broke, pumping into Bodie.

Pushing himself up until his elbows locked, Bodie couldn't take his eyes off Ray, who lay all unstrung, still trembling and panting. His eyes opened wide while the pupils shrank gradually. Bodie knew his mouth was a wet mess, but the itchy trickle from one corner made him shake his head and raised a half-grin from Ray, who brushed at it lightly and put the finger in his mouth. "Kiss me," he said, and Bodie did, and came apart himself, on Ray and on the bedclothes. Ray laughed aloud.

So easy to do this, now that they'd begun. It didn't feel like the first time, but like something they'd always done, as if Bodie would remember if he tried hard enough. As if they'd carry on having sex forever, creeping from one bed to another when they were OAPs. Bodie had not thought about growing old before, but as he fell asleep with Ray in his arms, he found himself believing. The A-bomb was gone, and London lived, and they would too. Very damn good.


	5. eyes big love crumbs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mixed Doyle and Bodie POV, older lads. This chapter is rated T.

It's always a little awkward to manage keys and doorknob, security locks and cane, but once again Bodie gets himself and the cane inside, even wagging it as if he were Fred Astaire about to start a routine, so he's already grinning by the time he sees Ray on the sofa grinning back. He bows, with a flourish of his free hand a bit like tipping the top hat he is not wearing. Ray laughs.

"How's it been, sunshine?" Bodie asks, and by that time, Ray is on his feet, bad back and all, and all ready to kiss when Bodie reaches him.

As usual, Bodie is surprised. Still so good, so wet and hot, after all these years. The few birds he'd been with more than a few nights--Claire, for instance, or Marikka--it wasn't that he hadn't loved them, but after a while their kisses were, well, predictable. Marikka loved rolling around, tangling limbs and pushing at each other's clothes. Claire wanted the sweet, brotherly kisses, especially in public, enacting respect and commitment. He'd tried to make them as real as he could. Those kisses had lain the groundwork for the guilt that had driven him later to actions of commitment she had never known about.

But what is left that Ray doesn't know? Nothing present, nothing since they'd met, and by now, very little of Bodie's past after years of asking, coaxing, demanding, even yelling. And Ray has his own memories that Bodie has asked about, corners he gradually filled in.

None of that can make this kiss routine.

Ray knows how to fill a kiss with emotion, whether the feeling is casual affection, passion, insistant lust, or love. Now he gives Bodie more than a greeting, more than a married peck or an invitation to sex. As familiar as his lips are, along with the chipped tooth and the stubble he already has by this time of day, although Bodie knows Ray's tiny sounds anywhere, even the slightest noise of wet lips lifting, pressing, lifting again, there is always a freshness there that undoes Bodie. Like walking in your own garden and finding new blooms; like sailing and watching the water as it repeats wave by wave and is never really the same. 

Bodie tilts his head back as Ray so often does, breathes deeply and savours the taste there, just inside his own lips, on the tongue he's just put inside Ray. Not opening his eyes, he says, "I love your mouth. Why do I keep leaving for work?"

Ray's chuckle shakes through Bodie. "So you can come home again?" Light, quick kisses nip at Bodie's lips. "So we can afford your Swiss rolls?"

"Your fresh herbs and vegetables aren't cheap either."

Ray just smiles.

Bodie holds his face in both hands, thinking how it's different now, the skin softer and like tissue paper that has wrapped years of presents; hair springing from his forehead, thick and grey and the curl almost gone; broken cheek that seems smoothed out, and the wise loving eyes, bluer than they used to be but snapping with just as much fire when Ray's temper rises.

Bodie remembers how guarded their gazes were, as trainees and as partners, even as lovers. He himself had been terrified that Ray would know him too well, take too much, and leave him behind. There's always fear in love, he thinks now, looking at the open confidence written on Ray's face, giving it back in his own eyes as well as in the kisses they keep exchanging. Now the fear is of a different, more final loss, not by enemy fire.

"What does Penfield say?" Mr Penfield is Ray's cardiologist, and Ray took a day off today, rescheduling meetings with Ministers and other security service heads so he could go to the appointment and follow-up tests.

***

Ray follows Bodie's train of thought, has followed it almost from the cheeky entrance: their hello kiss, the memories that cloud Bodie's eyes and the fear that visits both of them, blowing between them like a cold wind. Holding tighter, Ray smiles. "Entering the marathon, aren't I? And trying out for the Olympics."

"Then back to work tomorrow, no skiving."

Bodie pretending to be stern makes Ray want to laugh. He feels the bubble of mirth rise in his chest and tries to keep it in. "Can't miss Cates, can I?" he says as gravely as he can, but Bodie hides his embarrassment in Ray's neck.

Cates is one of the best of the new agents, and he views Ray as a mentor.

"Know he misses you," Bodie says with a little of that sulky pout that Ray has mocked for forty years now.

"I'll be sure to use the R/T when he throws me over his shoulder and carries me off." Ray strokes and ruffles the hair that is still so thick and warm.

With a short chuckle, Bodie promises, "I'll save you," and raises his head and his rueful eyes.

Ray doesn't know how they can still be so blue. The eyelashes are not as thick, the eyebrows not so extravagantly bent, touches of white scattered in his hair. But those eyes are wide as ever with a million expressions that Ray can read. This one is an apology for the niggling jealousy that they've talked through over and over, and Ray just shakes his head. Cates is engaged to a woman in MI6, and though Ray has reservations, they are not about his own influence. He won't say it again. One end of Bodie's mouth twists up.

Kissable. Ray knows where he wants that mouth. "Come on, come on," he says, and they make their way to the bedroom, Ray tugging on Bodie's arm until he almost cannot use his cane.

***

Later, Bodie murmurs against Ray's skin, "and possibly i like the thrill," takes a long breath of Ray's distinctive scent and goes on, "of under me you so quite new."

Ray knows this poem well by now, so he huffs sceptically and says, "Possibly," in a tone that means _Certainly_.

They both like the thrill. And it's always new.


End file.
